I DID NOT say that. Let me try saying this a different way. When one looks at a white-light spectrum, the "yellow" area is much narrower than the red or green portions; the color change from the "red" region to the green region takes place over a relatively small band.

Well-known member

A 589nm or 594nm, very, VERY unlikely. You'll need to find one at a garage sale to get that price. (don't count on it!)
You can however combine a red beam and a green beam to make it look yellow. If you find a cheap source of optics, you might be able to pull it off.

Well-known member

589 is definitely a golden color and 594 is more of an amber color. The colors are pretty close in person to that pic. 594 looks more yellow by itself but when next to 589 its amber color shows up nicely. FWIW the 594 is a 3mw HeNe and the 589 is a ~110mw CNI.

Well-known member

Most of the time the differences are because 593.5s are dimmer and less stable. There are very few comparison pics of here on 589 and 593.5 at a like for like power and when there are there's much less difference. I'm in the company of several SOX lamps which emit two almost identical lines at around 589nm and I can say it's virtually the same colour as the Rigel pointer in my sig.